What Happened to Joe Centanni - Rochester Rock Remembers?

[qman]

I wonder if the same holds true for talker WABC which had a Saturday night oldies show there a few years back?

 

[heydaybegone]

I wonder if the same holds true for talker WABC which had a Saturday night oldies show there a few years back?

Not sure WABC- New York would care much (a few years back)

 

[qman]

Good point!

 

[heydaybegone]

Good point!

Thank you. But i would think maybe today, it would get a look.

 

[umtrr-author]

I wonder if the same holds true for talker WABC which had a Saturday night oldies show there a few years back?

It appears that WABC is still airing that show.

But... if I may vent (well, what's a board for anyway), there is a marked difference between Joe's show and the WABC show.

Joe very much talked about the music and the artists. I must say that I learned a lot and heard songs I had not heard before, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. Even if I didn't like every song (and I didn't), it didn't matter because the program itself was interesting and fun to listen to.

The first few weeks that WABC had its program on the air, I was very interested and listened online if I couldn't get it over the air (I am from Joisey, dontcha know). But I quickly found that an awful lot of time spent during the show was WABC congratulating itself for doing this programming. After a while this rendered the show completely unlistenable. My understanding is that the WABC show still has this attitude... "Look how great we are for doing this for you!" Yeah, good on you, now play something already to illustrate the point... show, don't tell...

 

[cee]

Getting back to the original post, now if Crawford is really that cash strapped, how about:
- running an extra paid half hour or hour of leased time, religious, infomercial, ethnic - to pay for Joe's hourly wages.
- lease the saturday night show to Joe at a very low rate and he can sell the time himself. Back in the day, in Buffalo, I heard of Polka shows where the host was doing a leased time show, but leasing it on commission - no weekly rates, just selling spots and splitting the money with the station. That seems like a good end around to independent contracting....is that actually legal?

Anyway, it would be nice to see stations come up with creative solutions to keeping key weekend personel, rather than eliminating their jobs because the economy is not so great.

 

[SirRoxalot]

We'll have to see what Legends comes up with on Saturday. It's possible that they'll run a barter show that brings in more money than Joe did.

 

[scooterodell]

Plus we have the special NRBMLC ASCAP-BMI license for non-music stations. I would have to check with the licensing agency to make sure that carrying a regular music program wouldn't cause us to lose this special licensing status. If it did, that would cost thousands of dollars annually.

We use to run on one of those licenses back in the WDCZ days. Your license wouldn't be in danger, but your costs would go up... you essentially would be paying per song. It would then become an issue of whether the show could generate sufficient revenue to offset that costs, which, in your hands, it probably could.

 

[Savage]

Very true, scooter...but it's not just the costs. There would be additional administrative burdens as well. The recordkeeping for ASCAP/BMI music programming can be draconian (although it's been more than a decade for us on the NRBMLC "South Florida" - that's what it's called - license, so this may have changed.)

Bear in mind that we do everything that CC, Entercom and Stephens do...generate 24-hour a day programming, produce and sell spots, manage the business and collections....with SIX people. So we have to be careful about allocation of "human resources."

IIRC Joe initially tried selling the Saturday night show and bought the time from Crawford. I assume that business model didn't work out.

 

[Desert Pete]

Probably what will happen at Legends is that they'll bring in a nationally syndicated show like Tom Kent or Dick Bartley to run on Saturday nights ... for as long as Legends is around.

Scott Fybush awhile back saw into the future and posted the scenario for that station's eventual demise. Someone will take an existing Rochester station and re-start the oldies format done RIGHT. KLX-style (with no standards, good jingles, a full morning show, etc). When that happens, Crawford will drop Legends the next day and move on to something else. Right now, Crawford is semi-happy with Legends because it makes a little money. Since Crawford dropped a popular, local Saturday night request show because of budget cuts, that's a bad sign. It shows they honestly don't care about local content, and are ready to drop the hammer at any point without notice.

If history is any indicator, the scenario Fybush mentioned ... that I've just paraphrased ... is probably going to be Legends' fate. In 1985, WHFM finally folded and went into a country format that was designed not to do well (another long story), but it did make a little $$$. WNYR never took it seriously. They did the right thing by just continuing to do what they were doing. Two years later, WBEE was launched. They (the Bee) had an eye to the future, and WNYR knew their days were numbered. Soon after, they dropped country forever and started playing standards.

 

[cee]

IIRC Joe initially tried selling the Saturday night show and bought the time from Crawford. I assume that business model didn't work out.

Oh, I did not know that. Well, scratch that idea.

In 1985, WHFM finally folded and went into a country format that was designed not to do well (another long story), but it did make a little $$$.

The KC99 thing has always been a bit of a curiosity in the annals of Rochester radio. All I heard at the the time KC99 was dropped to go to WKLX/Classic Rock(which later became Oldies) was that KC's owners were Rock dudes who didn't like Country music. I always thought there was a little more to it than that. Anyone care to elaborate?

 

[heydaybegone]

I always thought there was a little more to it than that.

Thank you for the quote of the night. Story of our lives. Can't help you with the answer, even though I was living it out in 1985, in Roch.

 

[Desert Pete]

Well, the way I remember it, when Rust sold WHFM it was with some sort of non-compete agreement with the Lincoln Group that it (89.9)would not directly compete with then powerhouse semi-oldies WVOR for one year. So they went country for a year to hold up that end of the agreement. Bobby Hatfield was the PD of KC99. It was pretty much accepted as fact all over Rochester that KC99 would flip to oldies after a year, which is why WNYR didn't take 'em seriously as a country competitor. When WBEE was launched, WNYR knew they (the Bee)were in it for the long run, so they flipped to standards almost immediatly, knowing they could never compete in ratings or sales.

 

[heydaybegone]

Well, the way I remember it, when Rust sold WHFM it was with some sort of non-compete agreement with the Lincoln Group that it (89.9)would not directly compete with then powerhouse semi-oldies WVOR for one year. So they went country for a year to hold up that end of the agreement. Bobby Hatfield was the PD of KC99. It was pretty much accepted as fact all over Rochester that KC99 would flip to oldies after a year, which is why WNYR didn't take 'em seriously as a country competitor. When WBEE was launched, WNYR knew they (the Bee)were in it for the long run, so they flipped to standards almost immediatly, knowing they could never compete in ratings or sales.

WTFRTA? (figure that one out). Better come with some BETTER info regarding Lincoln Group. I was working for them then, and I don't know where you would have more info than I, regarding a non-compete, regarding WHFM (89.9????). WHAM was definately involved in the purchase etc. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying...divulge your source (hell, it's been 20 years...didn't the statuate of limitations run out on squeeling?)

 

[Mike_Oxlong]

This Desert Pete guy is blowing my mind with his lack of programming perspective... Whether it was initially a mistake or not, the adult standards got the station to the party. 6k stick, no marketing budget for the launch, no legendary local oldies vets in prime dayparts... and they still sign on with almost a 3 share- That is very notable & impressive... and its because they transferred the lion share of their cume from the AM to the FM as a result of the standards. Those P1's are still there, as evidenced by the high TSL. The tight list (sounds like a day & a daypart on power titles) will continue to help Crawford grow the cume slowly & steadily.

What WLGZ is now is an oldies station/mor hybrid, where it seems roughly 70 % of the titles are core oldies in any given hour I listen. There are other stations walking the same line in many other markets. Ironically, 102-7 The Lake in nearby Sackets Harbor airs a 24/7 satellite delivered version of this format & title for title (including the standards), the two stations are almost identical with a few exceptions & seemingly very close in clock composition. Take the best testing oldies, carve off most of the classic hits/rock titles due to lack of musical compatibility, and you've got a pop based gold station. Sinatra... Bobby Rydell... Frankie Valli... Barry Manilow- They are all the same artist, just in different decades. It's about texture, tonality & sensibility. It's about combining the science of a safe list with the art of programming. And, it's about knowing that the heritage of 990 AM had significant value.

I won't even argue about the stationality with Petey boy... Anybody could rotate CBS FM's top 300 titles, order the same jingles and put it on the air as a carbon copy radio station. It requires zero ability to that. Thank goodness they didn't do something that boring with WLGZ. Legends 102 has a compelling personalty. It's an interesting & clever broadcast brand. I listen quite a lot when I'm in the area and applaud what they are accomplishing on what is probably a shoestring budget (aren't we all suffering that at our stations these days)

Anyway, I read these boards & seldom comment about the "armchair quarterbacks"... I'd rather applaud stations or provide respectful & constructive input when possible, but in this case I simply could not let this one go.

 

[heydaybegone]

Intriguing. Leave it at that. (ok, not about what the thread is about)

 

[qman]

Check-mate Mr. Ox_long! You're the only one who gets it! That's EXACTLY what Legends is trying to accomplish with it's programming. Good for you Mike! Make no mistake! Legends will laugh the loudest while oldies wannabes continue to come and go. If your ideas are better than Legends then KLX and BBF would still be on the air now would they?

 

[cee]

Legends will laugh the loudest while oldies wannabes continue to come and go.

R&R online is all I can find for ratings, the latest being Fall 08, but this is Legends ratings history since moving to FM: 1.5 2.8 3.5 2.9
Maybe the winter '09 book will be better, but for now, I'm just sayin'

If your ideas are better than Legends then KLX and BBF would still be on the air now would they?

WRONG. KLX overall got pretty decent ratings(especially in key demos) and much, much better than what Legends FM has gotten so far. Even after Heritage Media(in the process of being sold) decided to go satellite oldies, they still did better overall then what Legends has done so far. After the 98.9 oldies relaunch as BBF-FM, the initial ratings were so-so and then skyrocketed until Entercom corporate suddenly decided to drop BBF/Oldies at 98.9 for the current Buzz format(they wanted better demos). Moving BBF-FM to 93.3 is what totally killed off BBF. The signal was still pretty weak(still not great), the promotional budget was cut to almost zero and their top asset, their great airstaff, was slowly whittled down to one morning personality. WKLX/WBBF had a very professional sound to it that was done in (twice) by corporate suits....and that's a fact.

 

[qman]

Excuses, excuses! The fact is BBF and KLX are dead and buried while Legends lives! You can talk about ratings and those will go up but the TSL is close to the top of the market. Why? Not because of jingle packages and formatics but because we're fun to listen to. We're not looking to impress other radio people, we're looking to build an audience of Jane and John Does who enjoy listening to fun music. You have a problem with how Legends is run, make Mr. Crawford an offer and buy the station, otherwise, don't worry about Legends it'll be fine!

 

[cee]

Cumes alone mean nothing. Your ratings aren't good. As far as professionalism - WKLX and WBBF kicked ass - and the public could tell - that's why they had good to excellent ratings their whole run.